Google+ Adds "Ignore" For Folks Who Prefer Shunning To Banhammers

Before today, if your annoying Uncle Ronnie acted like a moron on Google+ -- flooding your stream with tons of pointless posts and tagging you in every message, let’s say – the only way to stop the madness was to block him entirely. And as we all know, nothing makes for an awkward Thanksgiving faster than blocking Uncle Ronnie on G+. Someone at Google must be related to Uncle Ronnie, too! Today, a kinder, gentler "Ignore" button rolled out on Google’s social network.

Blocking another user results in a complete blacklisting on Google+; they’re booted from your Circles (and extended Circles), you can’t see their posts, and they can’t respond to yours. Ignoring tones it down a bit. Olga Wichrowska, the software engineer who announced the new function, likens it more to being indifferent to a person rather than downright wanting nothing to do with them. According to Olga, the following actions occur when you ignore someone:

you won't see any of their posts in the Incoming stream

you won't get notifications about their activities

you won’t see them on your Circles page

As opposed to a full-blow block, ignored users can still read and comment on your Stream posts. That way, Uncle Ronnie isn’t out of your life entirely, but you won’t have to read the oh-so-frequent status updates on his bathroom habits any longer.